GSD Course Bulletin - Fall 2011 - DES-03343-00

COURSE DETAILS

Instructor(s)

Jill Desimini

Course Description

03343 will meet for the first meeting in portico 123 on Friday, September 2nd.
This advanced research seminar will explore landscape issues and potentials of shrinking North American cities. A series of lectures will investigate the body of literature surrounding these cities, the precedent European scholarship and the question of nature in altered urban conditions. We will look at demolition and development tactics. We will explore revised ground conditions through hydrology and ecology; infrastructure and energy; forests and meadows; food production; and uncanny programmatic appropriations. The course will challenge the notion of the shrinking city as frontier by identifying case studies in which current inhabitants engage land for productive urban use. Lessons from shrinking cities -- including sprawl fallout, resource limitation, and the balance between landscape and the built environment -- will be related to the challenges of future urbanization. Using the typologies of the field guide and the game, we will reframe the dialogue around the shrinking city to focus on its vast possibilities.This research and representation-based course is open to all GSD students: landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning, urban design and design studies. There are no prerequisites.